Feeling Blue
by Tempral Bouncer
Summary: By the time Ted Lupin kissed Victoire Weasley at King’s Cross, they had managed to sort out their feelings for each other. But in the years leading up to that… well, let’s just say they had their fair share of drama getting there… T/V Fluff. One-shot.


_Summery: By the time Ted Lupin kissed Victoire Weasley to see her off at King's Cross, they had managed to sort out their feelings for each other and were finally ready to be in a relationship. But in the years leading up to that… well, let's just say they had their fair share of drama getting there… T/V Fluff. One-shot._

Feeling Blue

March 30, 2015

The rain poured down over the Hogwarts grounds in sheets. Visibility was almost nil, though if he turned around, Ted Lupin could still make out the familiar silhouette of the castle. No one else was crazy enough to be out roaming around the grounds in a storm like this. Even the wildlife had vanished, trying to find shelter from the downpour in the Forbidden Forest.

Wandering around in this sort of weather probably wasn't the brightest move Ted had ever made, but after a day like today, he just needed to get out of the castle. He needed to walk. He needed to think. So, despite the stupidity inherent in his actions, Ted found himself walking along, just a few meters from the edge of the Forbidden Forest, in the middle of a spring storm.

"At least no one will find me out here," Ted muttered to himself, his eyes glued to the path directly in front of him. He laughed bitterly, "And now I'm talking to myself. Surely that's a sign of my normalcy, right?" As he walked, he noticed a small branch lying on the ground, and he pulled back and kicked it as hard as he could. It quickly flew out of his visibility range.

Then, over the downpour, he heard something. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crackcrackcrackcrack. Thump! Looking up, Ted could see the outline of a tree. For a moment he thought the wind had blown it over, but as he watched, it slowly righted itself against the wind.

The Whomping Willow. It must have whipped around and attacked the stick he'd kicked. He'd wandered farther than he'd thought. Sighing to himself, he backed up a few paces and lay down on the muddy ground, closing his eyes to protect them from the rain.

Normally it didn't get to him. The teasing. Sure, it bothered him that at one point, he used to get calls of "Hey freak, show us something weird!" several times a day. But he could usually ignore it, even back when it happened often, and these days it had pretty much stopped. But between the stress of the rapidly approaching O.W.L.'s, the complete overload of schoolwork assigned to prepare them, his Grandmother, Andromeda, falling ill, and his new… whatever it was… with Amelia, Ted just couldn't deal with having anything else on his plate at the moment. It wasn't like it was even that bad, what happened. He'd faced far worse without even batting an eyebrow.

But he hadn't had to deal with it in front of a girl he actually thought he had a shot with before. And he hadn't had to deal with it from Victoire.

So things had just sort of spiraled out of control.

It was stupid. Ted had been studying with Amelia and a few of her friends in the library (something he seemed to do far too often these days for it to be entirely healthy), when thirteen-year-old Victoire Weasley had bounced over and dumped an old, dusty potions tome down in front of him. She immediately started babbling something about having 'found it' but Ted hadn't really heard her. Not having expected all the dust, he'd sneezed rather violently.

What with him being a metamorphmagus, Ted's body had a tendency of reacting oddly when startled. This tendency was amplified when he was stressed, and seemed to have gotten even worse since he'd started puberty. As he sneezed, his hair had turned from its regular blue to neon orange and shot out in patches. That wasn't a huge deal. He'd also felt abnormally tight around his shoulders and had heard a loud riiip. Sure enough, his shoulders had bulked up for a second, and practically ripped his shirt off of his chest. Then they'd shrunk back to normal. Everyone around had turned to stare. Ted immediately knew he'd be getting snide comments from some of the less mature sixth and seventh years about this for the rest of the year. And of course it had to happen with his sort-of girlfriend, Amelia, sitting right there. Embarrassed, full of adrenaline, and in a decent amount of pain (bulking up suddenly to the point of ripping through a shirt hurt quite a bit), Ted had overreacted.

"Gee, thanks Vic," he'd whispered venomously. "I'm so glad you're around to help me." Victoire's eyes widened and she'd turned beet red, obviously embarrassed. He'd closed his eyes, shifted his hair back to its normal length and bright blue color, and exhaled slowly. It wasn't fair to snap at Vic; she hadn't done anything malicious and was probably trying to help him with his O.W.L. preparation somehow. But as he opened his mouth to apologize, she cut him off.

"You know, if you actually did the control exercises the healer recommended, shit like that wouldn't happen, Teddy," she snapped.

Thoughts of apology left his mind as he glared over at her.

"Well maybe if _certain rude people_ didn't shove dusty, worthless old tomes in my face without any warning, it wouldn't be an issue."

She narrowed her eyes. "Well maybe if _a certain inept person _could handle his O.W.L.'s by himself, I wouldn't have to," she replied, her voice rising.

"Like I need a third year's help to pass my O.W.L.'s. What's the matter? Can't deal with the big kids being busy? You're such a _baby_ sometimes, Vicki!" As the words left his mouth, Ted already regretted it. He was well aware that Victoire had been very insecure about them being able to remain close due to their age gap. It'd been an insecurity ever since he'd gone off to Hogwarts two years before her. Calling her a baby in front of a group of fifth years wasn't cool, and using her childhood nickname was like pouring salt on the wound. Ted knew he owed her an apology.

But just as before, her Weasley temper didn't give him a chance to get it out. Something in Victoire's eyes flashed and she snapped. She let out a short laugh – the kind that made it clear she was laughing _at_ him rather than with him – and then smiled maliciously. "You must be getting really angry there, Teddy-boy. Your hair's turned a perfect shade of freak-red!"

They glared at each other for a second, and then the smile promptly vanished from Victoire's face. Her eyes widened a bit as she seemed to realize what she'd said, but it was too late to take it back. She could've gotten away with plenty of other insults, but with the past teasing Ted had endured, freak was way over the line. Ted violently shoved away the tome she'd brought over and snatched up his books. "Ted, I didn't mean –" she began quietly.

Ted cut her off. "Just shut up," Ted snapped angrily. "I bet you couldn't manage to drag yourself out of your room in the morning if you had so much as a perfect blond hair out of place, let alone if your entire head just decided to cover itself in 'freak-red' hair!" Ted had been hoping for some sort of response to that, because he really wanted an excuse to yell more, but Victoire just stood silently in place and looked down at the ground. "Just get away from me," Ted finished. Despite having just told her to get away, Ted was the one who then picked up his books and stormed off.

That had been several hours ago. Ted had spent the time since first venting to his roommate, Derek, then wandering around the Hogwarts grounds, and somewhere along the way most of his anger had evaporated. Victoire had still crossed a line – Ted had spent his first several years at Hogwarts being teased for his inability to control his metamorphamagus powers, and it had royally sucked – but Ted knew he hadn't reacted maturely in the argument leading up to that. While it wasn't nearly as bad, calling her a baby like that really hadn't been cool, no matter how stressed and upset he was. They both owed each other an apology. Though given how much the girl hated actually apologizing, Ted was still somewhat concerned about their next conversation. So he just lay on the soaking wet mud-grass in front of the Whomping Willow and let the rain fall on him.

Amelia probably thought he was a complete nutter now. Maybe she was right, he thought, as he saw lightning flash through his eyelids. After all, he was lying out in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm, right by a tree that liked to smash anything it could get its branches on. That wasn't exactly sane behavior. But this line of thought wasn't going to do anything good for him.

"Who was it who decided to plant that stupid tree anyway?" Ted asked aloud. "Seems like a bad idea to plant an angry-death-tree next to a school full of curious, naïve children."

"I was wondering that myself," Victoire's voice replied hesitantly a few moments later, startling Ted. He sat up, wiped the rain from his eyes and looked around, spotting her standing a few feet from him with her wand lit. She was bundled up tightly in her cloak, hood pulled snug around her so only her face was visible. She slowly walked over towards him, avoiding his eyes, and sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. She looked very small, sitting there, and Ted looked away to study the outline of the Whomping Willow against the rain. "I guess somebody didn't think things through very well when they decided to plant it."

There was an awkward silence as both of them seemed to be trying to figure out what to say. Ted knew he owed her an apology, but he didn't want to have this conversation yet, and he definitely didn't want to be the first one to apologize. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the Whomping Willow's strange dance under the rain. "How'd you find me?" Ted asked, glancing over at her.

"Trade secret," she replied without missing a beat. She didn't look back at him, but he could see the traces of a smile on her face.

"So, you sweet-talked Derek into letting you into my room and you found me on the Map, then."

"Pretty much."

The silence stretched out for another few minutes, but it was less awkward this time. It was clear to Ted that Vic was trying to formulate her thoughts. So he let her formulate and looked ahead towards the Whomping Willow, occasionally shivering from the cold. The third time he shivered, Vic noticed and turned to him, shining her wand light on him. "Oh my God Ted, you're not even wearing a cloak, you must be freezing! You're going to catch your death!"

Ted shrugged. "I'm fine," but he couldn't stop himself from shivering again.

Victoire raised a skeptical eyebrow. She turned around, pointed her wand at the ground on the other side of her and muttered a few spells. Then she turned back to Ted and cast a warming charm on him. It wasn't the strongest warming charm ever, but Ted felt instantly better. He hadn't actually realized how cold he was getting. He thanked her reluctantly as she rested her still-lit wand on the ground between them. She offered him a quick smile then looked back towards the tree.

"You're right, you know," she offered after a few seconds. He turned his head to look at her again, but she was still looking forward. "I'm not sure I would've been able to leave my room in the morning if my hair randomly decided to change colors on me. I mean, I knew it wasn't pleasant for you to have to deal with that, but I hadn't actually stopped to consider what it'd be like if it happened to me, and I really should have before making thoughtless comments."

It wasn't actually an apology, but it was closer than he was expecting given how vehemently Victoire hated to apologize for anything. Ted sighed. "I don't actually think you're a baby. I shouldn't have said that. It's just hard, you know? I mean, I know no one's body really does what they want at our age, but mine kind of takes it to extremes sometimes."

She laughed a bit, which was what Ted had been hoping for, and then turned her head towards him. "Do you think you're going to get much of a hard time about all that?" she asked.

Ted shrugged again. "Probably," he answered honestly, "But that's just because they need something to gossip about." He noticed her cheeks start to pinken. "It's okay," he said, "I'm used to being a spectacle, it doesn't normally bother me anymore. Besides, I didn't exactly downplay it. I was just stressed from exams, and with my Grandmother…"

"I heard about that," Vic said, reaching her hand out to touch his arm, "If there's anything I can do to help…"

"I'll let you know," Ted said, nodding, and the two lapsed into a few minutes of companionable silence.

Victoire sighed and leaned her head up against Ted's shoulder. "Teddy… I did something stupid and I'm not sure if you're going to be even angrier with me." Ted glanced down at her and raised an eyebrow. He honestly doubted she could've done anything that would've made him angrier than he was earlier, but with how things had been going for him recently, on second thought, he almost didn't doubt it. He could see her cheeks pinken again and she glued her eyes to the ground.

"Yes?" Ted asked, trying to keep his breathing even to help him keep calm. Whatever it was, it wasn't going to be good.

Victoire moved her head back and met his eyes finally, offering an obviously forced and almost hopeful smile. She reached her hands up and pulled the drawstring on her hood, untying it, and then pulled the hood back.

Revealing a head of electric blue hair.

"I couldn't find any red dye."

Ted blinked, spending a moment to take it in, and then he couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing. Victoire let out the breath she'd been holding and smiled at him for real this time. "You're not mad then?"

Ted just shook his head and smiled back. He couldn't believe she'd dyed her hair blue. It was so… Victoire… to actually dye her hair rather than actually say those two little words 'I'm sorry'… but it worked. Ted knew how much work Victoire put into her appearance… for her to actually dye her hair blue… well, it was almost impossible for him to believe. It wasn't quite the same color he normally kept his hair, but it was decently close. All of his residual anger with her had simply evaporated. "I can't believe that you… how long is that going to last?"

"Erm.. I think Dominique said about four months?"

Ted's eyes went wide, "Shit, Vic," he said, still grinning, "Your mum's going to kill you, you know."

"Let me worry about that," Vic replied, with a very self-satisfied smirk on her face.

"Shit, your mum's going to kill me, you know."

Victoire smacked him on the arm, "She most certainly is not. My mum loves you. Besides, she'd have to get past me to get to you, and let's face it," she said, still smirking, "she's not going to be able to take her eyes off the wonder that is my hair." She tossed her now soaking wet blue hair as if she were a model and laughed.

Ted shook his head and laughed, then noticed Victoire starting to shiver. "Alright, come on you, let's get you back inside before you freeze."

She smiled as he pulled her up and they started back towards the castle, with Victoire's wand lighting the way. "Well, I'm not really that cold, you know, but I suppose we should head back. You must be getting cold, after all."

"I'm perfectly warm I'll have you know," Ted lied, willing himself not to shiver, "You, however, are obviously freezing. Look, you're so cold your hair's turning blue." Victoire mock-glared at him, but Ted just grinned back and started shifting the color of his hair. It took him a few seconds, but once he had matched the electric blue of her hair, he stopped shifting it. "There. Now we properly match. I suppose I might even admit to being a little cold. But only a little. And you can't tell anyone," Ted joked, shivering again.

"Don't worry, I won't breath a word of it to anyone," Vic replied, running her fingers across her lips as if zipping them shut.

"So how did you manage to get your hands on blue hair dye anyway?"

"Mmm mm mmmm mm," Victoire replied through closed lips.

"Smartarse," Ted said, as he reached over and ran his fingers over her lips to pantomime unzipping them.

Victoire grinned. "Anywho, as I was saying, I might've made a quick trip to Hogsmeade."

"Really? I don't suppose you happened to bring me back a butterbeer?"

"Mmm. I brought me back several butterbeers. And if you drag your Ravenclaw arse over to the Gryffindor common room sometime, you might even be able to talk me into sharing."

"Ahh, so bribery is the name of the game, is it? Well, I think you may have found my price. Though it's a bit late tonight… have you had dinner yet? I've definitely missed it, so I think I'm going to go grab something from the kitchens before studying myself to sleep."

"I've been a busy girl… I missed dinner too. I'll come join you."

The pair chatted easily as they walked back towards the castle, and Ted was happy to realize that things were completely back to normal between them.

A/N: My first dip into the HP world. Comments/criticisms/reviews appreciated! =)


End file.
